News & Reports

Short Shorts Film Festival & Asia (SSFF & ASIA), Asia’s biggest international short film festivals accredited by the Academy Awards, celebrates its 25th year of the International Competition  and 20th year of the Asian Competition. With this year’s theme of “UNLOCK,” while respecting the history and knowledge of the filmmaker and support networks, community, and film festivals that have been cultivated so far, the festival strives to “UNLOCK – dive into the world of the new post-corona era to the new world,” a video contest where participants can vote through NFT, a seminar to study storytelling with VR technology, and a platform that manages the ideas and works of creators around the world to connect them with supporters and audiences were launched.

Eight awards were announced at the award ceremony held at the Meiji Jingu Memorial Hall today.

The world’s only Grand Prix named after George Lucas, selected from more than 5,000 entries from Japan and abroad, was given to the animation short film “Kibo no kakehashi / The Bridge ” by Izumi Yoshida, a Japanese female director living in Poland.

Smartphone Film Competition supported by Sony’s Xperia, Hoppy Happy Awards were also announced.

“I was overwhelmed by the creators who were able to develop such a colorful world in an extremely short time. (Judge: Yayako Uchida), “It was full of charm and motivation that reflected the present, making me want to love this atmosphere that I am living in now.” (Judge: Yuki Yamato), “Many of the works depicted children in an impressive way, and the children were all strong and made us look forward to a bright future for the next generation. On the other hand, it makes you feel the problems of the real world.” (Judge: Masato Hagiwara) This year’s live action category, as well as the winners of each competition’s Best Short Award and the Best Actor Award, are announced below.

In addition, the official competition nominated films, including each award-winning film, will be specially extended at the film festival online venue Grand Theater until July 10 (Monday). https://www.shortshortsonline.org/